Interface

Having already read couple fine books by Neal Stephenson - Zodiac, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age and Cryptonomicon - the expectations were pretty high when I begun with Interface. I have to that in the end I was dissapointed. The first half was kept toghether with my development of the tech and the main characters, but the second half did not fullfill the promises hanging in the air. 


I do not know how much the listening of the Daemon and Freedom(tm) in the middle of the book did effect to my feelings in the end. As the Suarez's story was so driven, I bet the Interface got bit spoiled in the process.I won't let one dissapointment make me forget Stephenson, I've already begun with his newest: Reamde.

Daemon and Freedom(tm)

I have to make a confession: I'm still addicted to audiobooks. Luckily this addiction shouldn't be the most destructive one - on the contrary. It has helped me to make my commuting much more pleasant and healthy, among other things. AFAIK there are not that many downsides listening them, albeit Piritta and some of my friends and colleagues getting tired of my pitching of the way of consuming books. AND as the family life keeps getting busier and busier, I wouldn't have any time reading anything other fiction than children's books if I would be forced to just use dead wood products.

I will continue of posting short comments on the books I finish listening. This time the subject is actually a pair of books: Daemon and Freedom(tm) by Daniel Suarez. I know the buzz about these two has already winded down but as I finally got to the end I was thrilled! It has been some time since reading science fiction/cyberpunk novels which is located in so close future. I have been a bit avoiding them like most of the techno thriller movies as the technology visions and their realism is generally just bad. Suarez delivers on these books such a level of believability - at least in principle - which was more than enough to just yank me to go with the story. Of course one can always challenge the concepts and assumptions, but in any case we are in whole different level than the average. Now, after a five years since publication, some things like the popularity and consequences of e.g. identity theft and the power of distributed and networked group of talented and/or driven individuals are even more real, as they are commonly making the news headlines.

The next book which is already well underway is Neal Stephenson's "Interface" which feels already now so much more modest and lacking on the tech side but still enjoyable listen/read.

Rebooting sph

I am rebooting my blogging activities by resurrecting the sph -blog as sphsquared.blogspot.com. The archives of the old blog remain on the old location for keeping the links valid in addition of being included here as historical data.

Expect to read at least about the books I've read and about the everyday tech I try to include in our family life with variable success.